


Beware the Chinchilla

by ghostyouknow



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Possibly Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 20:13:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostyouknow/pseuds/ghostyouknow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gen doesn't know why Alona's making such a big deal about Gen babysitting her pet chinchilla. It's a rodent. It's not like it has magic powers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beware the Chinchilla

**Author's Note:**

> This is a silly little fluffy ficlet thing that I started ages ago. I finally decided to suck it up and write the last 200 words, and now there's an Alona & Gen chinchilla ficlet in existence, so there.

“It's okay if she escapes,” Alona said. “She's like a little homing pigeon. She always ends up back home, somehow. In fact, I wouldn't be too surprised if she does, or if she does and you don't really notice. She spends most of her time hiding in her hide-y house, so you might not even see her.”

Gen didn't know very much about chinchillas, but she thought they were kinda like giant, extra-fluffy gerbils. She hadn't figured them for the Homeward Bound sort. Homeward Roadkill, maybe.

Alona was being weird. That wasn't so unusual; Alona enjoyed being weird. Still, Gen hadn't seen that particular manic expression since their senior year, when Alona had tried to smuggle a baby bobcat into Feymore High on the grounds that it wouldn't latch for her mother, so how else was it going to get its lunchtime bottle?

Alona's parents were zoologists and part-time wildlife rehabilitators. That meant visitors had to heed the “Porcupine Crossing” sign or risk being mauled by Butterball, a huge, stinky, and inexplicably friendly ball of horrifying weaponry. There were also the owls, and the orphaned beavers, and the foxes... if it were indigenous-adjacent, it had probably spent some time at the Tals'.

“I promise she won't get out,” Gen said. “It's not like chinchilla's have magic powers.” 

Alona froze, looking twitchy.

Gen narrowed her eyes. “Alona. It's a chinchilla. It doesn't have magic powers.”

Alona shrugged. It wasn't a relaxed shrug. “No, but she does have tiny paws, with tiny thumb-like appendages, and you know rodent teeth… I'm just saying, there's no need to panic if she's not there in the morning. I'll come and collect the cage whenever I get back, chin or no chin.” 

Alona and her weird zoologist parents usually went out camping during the full moon to track some kind of… whatever. But her parents were stuck in an airport somewhere in Montana, along with a shipment of grizzly bears or red wolves or whatever they were working with this week, and so Alona was heading out with Sam Ferris, an ecologist who was also some kind of second-cousin twice removed. All of this meant that Alona needed a petsitter for her chinchilla. Gen hadn't even known that Alona had a chinchilla, much less that she'd be at the top of the list of approved sitters, considering how long it had been since they'd last talked.

Gen scrutinized the tall wire cage, with its neat, wood-flakes bedding and its squat log cabin, complete with etched-in sign: _Beware the Chinchilla_. The mouth of the cabin was pitch dark, though Gen thought she could see a fine edge of something furred. “Is she in there?”

“Do you need me to go over the list again?”

Gen started reciting. “Make sure her water's filled, provide fresh timothy hay and precisely one tablespoon of Chinchilla Superfood Pellets. Make sure she has a Chew Block and a freshly filled dust bath, and do this all before sunset. Are you sure it's a chinchilla, not a gremlin?"

Alona was not amused. “And?”

 Gen rolled her eyes. “Do not hold her, pet her, scratch her ears through the bars, or in any way initiate contact with the chinchilla.”

“Or?”

“Or she'll bite my thumbs off, and I'll get a horrible blood infection and die.”

Alona grinned. “That's about right.”

“Some people have dogs. Or cats. You know, normal, non-vicious pets?” Gen glanced again at the sign. She didn't know why she shivered. It was a rodent… which, okay, probably explained at least half of Gen's current case of the creeps.

Alona frowned, as if remembering yet another important detail. “Also, don't mention f-u-r-c-o-a-t-s anywhere near her. She'll flip out and—”

“Bite out my eyeballs?”

“The fact that you're joking worries me.” Alona crossed her arms. “This is serious. I don't have anyone else who can do this, and if someone doesn't watch her, she'll get eaten by the fox kits. Or possibly the owl.”

Gen gripped Alona's shoulder. “Alona. She's a rodent. She lives in a cage. I got this.”

Suddenly, Gen had an armful of sincere, squeezing Alona. “Thanks.”

“Uh, yeah. Don't mention it.” Gen didn't return the hug, at least not fully. She patted Alona's shoulder and tried to remember: Alona was totally weird about her animals, and also kinda weird in general. So what? There were worse qualities to have in a best friend.

Former best friend.

#

Gen wasn't totally sure why she and Alona had stopped talking. 

No, that was a lie. It was because Alona up and decided she didn't want to talk to Gen anymore, which happened after Alona returned from her family's winter trip to Peru. She'd announced that she was taking a personal leave of absence from school and gone back to working as her parents' live-in super scooper/field minion. Except that wouldn't have been enough to move them from bestest best friends to people who were casually friendly when they saw each other, which wasn't often.

Alona had not only disappeared, but instituted radio silence. Gen had moved from sad to pissed to furious to nursing an old-feeling wound that only twinged every once in awhile, as she'd gotten more involved with the rowing team and made the mistake of taking nutritional science to satisfy her science requirement, not to mention the even bigger mistake of dating That Asshole Formerly Known as Brody. She'd made new friends. She wasn't even through sophomore year, and high school seemed so far away and so long ago that there might as well have been .

But one phone call from Alona—about a chinchilla of all things—had Gen agreeing to help her, like they were still friends.

Gen peered into the chinchilla cage. She still couldn't see the darn thing.

 #

 _Scritch_.

Gen silenced the zombie movie playing on her laptop. 

_Scratch_.

She took out her earbuds and listened in the darkness. If Gen hadn't known better, she would've thought that Alona had opened David's window (Gen's window being half-stuck, Alona had taken to sneaking in through David's whenever he was away at college, back when they were still in high school). But Alona was out greeting the moon with her second-cousin twice-removed, so it had to be … someone else.

Oh, God. There was a burglar. Or a kidnapper—

_Screech screech screech!_

High-pitched barks split the air. Gen tumbled out of bed and fumbled around her nightstand, searching for her cellphone. She thought she saw something move in the darkness. A small, hopping shadow—

She turned on her bedside lamp and saw—

The chinchilla.

It … definitely wasn't a gerbil. If anything, it looked the mutant love child of a bunny and a squirrel. Its body was less than a foot long, though its bushy tail added twice its fair share of inches. It had blood-red eyes and long, twitchy whiskers, and judging from its beady, disgruntled glare, it wouldn't mind eating Gen.

Gen slowly lifted her sock-clad feet from the floor.

The chinchilla made a chittering noise, and then it popped off the ground, body twisting like a bronco's. It barreled toward Gen and–

It wasn't like it took an obvious leap. Its hindquarters didn't slowly coil. Its forelegs didn't stretch off the ground. One minute, the chinchilla was on the floor, and the next, it was soaring toward Gen's face.

Gen yelped and dove from the bed. She sprinted toward the door and slammed it shut, then leaned up against the solid wood, panting.

She heard some soft, thudding hops. 

_Scritch_.

#

At around five in the morning, the hopping, barking, and gnawing noises came to a complete stop.

Gen sat up, listening.

She heard a few thwacks. The sound of someone trying to force up a stuck window. Gen swallowed. The doorknob turned in her hand—

She saw Alona wearing Gen's pajamas and wielding a trophy from an ancient soccer game as if to break the window.

“Alona?”

Alona dropped the trophy. The soccer ball broke off and rolled across the floor, knocking into Gen's foot. 

They both stared at the tiny piece of fake bronze.

“Oh.” Alona said. “Oops.”

*** 

“So,” Gen said. “You turn into a chinchilla sometimes.”

Alona nodded over her tea, her long hair falling across her face. “Yeah. Since that trip to that Peru. I got, um, bit. Usually my parents help me out, but they're sorta stuck, and Samantha knows about me, but she's also in Brazil, and I'm too good at escaping to stay at home. Butterball would get me, if the predatory things didn't get me first. 

“And now you turn into an evil chinchilla on the full moon?” Gen shifted, restless, in her seat. “Is _that_ why you stopped talking to me? You thought I'd freak out? Or call the FBI?”

"Freaking out would be the normal reaction." Alona bit her lip and stared into her tea, looking like she'd like to become a weretortoise with a thick shell in which to hide forever. "It's not like I turn into a nice chinchilla. I'm a monster, Gen. I'm just a tiny, fluffy monster, instead of some huge drooling wolf."

"You tried to eat my face."

Alona nodded. Slumped. Looked more miserable. "I didn't think that would happen. Honest." 

Gen reached over and pulled her hair.

Alona jerked back with a squeak. “Gen! What the fuck?”

“Chinchillas are soft. I wanted to see if any of that carried over.”

“I have hair, not chinchilla fur, you jerk! You can't just—”

“What? Hold you, pet you, scratch your ears, or in any way initiate contact with someone who used to be my best friend?”

Alona's face went red, then pale, then splotchy. “ _Gen_.”

“So you're a rodent with magic powers,” Gen said. “I've got it, as long as you, you know, don't bite my off my thumbs.”

She'd probably freak out later, but whatever. Right now, she just wanted to communicate that Alona was an idiot, since 1) Gen wouldn't have dumped her for turning into a furball and 2) She'd probably have been better off knowing. She'd have locked Alona in her brother's room, for starters. 

Alona's tea went flying across the table. The rest of her barreled into Gen, hugging her tight. “You can maybe scratch my ears a little, but no promises on the thumbs.”

Oh. So maybe they'd be okay, then.

Gen didn't bother with Alona's ears, but she did return her hug in full.

**Author's Note:**

> A contribution from an actual chinchilla, who decided to hop around my keyboard. I'd like to take it as feedback:
> 
>  
> 
> AA11111q11!@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ZK


End file.
